Karim

You need to keep learning and be keen to share your knowledge with others. You need to know how to explain things in straightforward terms without oversimplifying, pay attention, understand marketing processes to a certain degree and be very persistent because the conversion rate is low! There’s a philosophical aspect to R&D; we want to understand everything and measure everything. Every subject is vast and there’s always more to be done. Pursuing a goal that’s outside our scope, that’s what’s really exciting. I also love working with all the different business units and countries. We work closely and we constantly talk through our ideas; we really are a global village. And that allows us to hit our target every time. For instance, tea isn’t the same in Japan or Russia or the US - and you need to know that before you start designing a phone-activated tea maker.

It’s not all about microprocessors and sensors. It’s about stimulating the senses – and that’s fascinating.